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Ryan Hunter-Reay was the IndyCar champion this season. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

IndyCar provides wildest season in ages: Year in review 2012

December 16, 2012

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The year without Dan Wheldon. The year of a new race car. The year of renewed competition between engine manufacturers. The year Lotus came and left. The year Rubens Barrichello arrived. The year someone beat Dario Franchitti to the title. The year of an American champion. The year Randy Bernard’s era ended.

This Izod IndyCar Series season offered so much to digest, and more is in the works.

As Autoweek went to press, talk of who owns and operates the series continues. Former IndyCar boss Tony George has expressed interest in purchasing the oft-struggling series he founded more than a decade ago, but IndyCar’s parent company insists it is not for sale.

Then there is the issue of finding a replacement for Bernard. In a now-famous tweet in June, he said team owners wanted him fired. Whether they were supportive or not is not really the issue now; the board of directors of IndyCar’s parent company voted him out on Oct. 28. A little more than two years remained on his five-year deal.

Given the strong on-track product IndyCar showcased in 2012, you might find it difficult to remember how bad things looked last January. The series was mourning the loss of Wheldon in that horrific 15-car crash during the Oct. 16 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the new Dallara chassis that he helped develop still had teething problems. In worse shape was the Lotus engine program that had yet to hit the track.

Barrichello at that point was still trying to decide if he wanted to become an IndyCar driver after 18 seasons in Formula One. He did, joining longtime friend and fellow Brazilian Tony Kanaan at KV Racing Technology. The combination of storylines made for an intriguing first race, although having it in Wheldon’s adopted hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla., tempered the mood. City officials honored the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner by renaming a street on the waterfront circuit where he won in 2005. Wheldon’s younger sister, Holly, waved the flag to begin the season.

The first race was a sign of good things to come for the DW12 chassis as seven drivers led in what was a competitive 100-lap event. There were a few mechanical issues, but the three engine manufacturers, including Honda and Chevrolet, got through the weekend in impressive shape.

Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves won that race to end a winless drought of more than a year, and he celebrated by climbing the fence near the “Dan Wheldon Way” sign. He patted it in memory of the popular British racer. Barrichello’s first IndyCar race ended with his car two laps off the pace, but he was pleased with the debut. So was Beaux Barfield, whose first outing as IndyCar’s race director went off without controversy.

An entertaining race at Barber Motorsports Park followed, with passing aplenty. Barrichello and Sébastien Bourdais (Dragon Racing) had a spirited duel for eighth place with Franchitti, the four-time and reigning series champion of Ganassi Racing, finishing a spot behind them in 10th. Will Power (Team Penske) won.

The Long Beach race that followed highlighted one of the nuances of the new-engine war. All the Chevy teams heeded the manufacturer’s advice and changed engines prior to the race weekend. Because IndyCar required an engine to travel 1,850 miles between changes, each car was docked 10 starting positions. This happened a lot in 2012.

Power won Long Beach despite starting 12th after swapping engines, and he won the next race, too, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and looked ready to dominate his way to the title. But, despite winning three in a row, he failed to win a fourth.

The Indy 500 belonged to Franchitti, his only win of the season. He is now one of only 10 drivers to win Indy three times, along with Castroneves.

Franchitti’s Ganassi teammate, Scott Dixon, won in the series’ return to Detroit, but the race was overshadowed when the track surface came apart mid-race. James Hinchcliffe hit the wall after striking a large chunk of road; officials stopped the race for more than an hour for repairs.

Bad PR of a different kind followed at Texas Motor Speedway, where Justin Wilson won despite having a car that failed post-race inspection. But Wilson wouldn’t have won had Graham Rahal not drifted into the turn-four wall coming to the final lap.

The stretch of races at Milwaukee, Iowa and Toronto saw Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay assert himself. He won all three to jump from seventh in the standings (75 points out of the lead) to first place (leading by 34). Note the difference in the three venues: a flat short oval, a banked oval with speedway characteristics and a street race. If you can win on all three, you have the makings of a champion.

Castroneves won the final race in Edmonton; the promoter said local sponsorship wasn’t enough. Maybe it was fitting that the Brazilian won after he had the 2010 race taken away from him by a controversial blocking call.

Dixon won Mid-Ohio, and Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe won in Sonoma, Calif., to set the stage for the dramatic run to season’s end.

Hunter-Reay delivered the season’s best drive by navigating a wet Baltimore street circuit with slick tires (for track position) as the rest of the field stopped for wets. He then got the better of Briscoe on a late restart to score his fourth win of the year. Championship rival Power got hung up in traffic and finished sixth.

Power still could have won the title by staying close to Hunter-Reay at the finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., but he crashed trying to pass him for 13th place early in the race. His crew put in a heroic effort to repair the car and put Power back on the track, but Hunter-Reay finished fourth—good enough to give him his first championship by three points.

The offseason has been interesting to say the least. IndyCar announced a 19-race schedule for 2013 that includes three doubleheaders, a Triple Crown competition and new races in Houston and at Pocono Raceway. But that was only part of the news, as George bid to regain control, Bernard departed and Rahal signed with his father Bobby’s team for 2013. There’s still more to come before IndyCar is back on track in March.